If JFK lives, impact of Baker/Reynolds saga?

Not a general discussion of JFK lives but rather how far would the Bobby Baker investigation go? Would Baker blow the whistle on his patron? Baker told Robert Caro that he could've but didn't, ditto a lot of other VIPs. Then there's the Don Reynolds saga- allegations of influnce peddling and other such things involving LBJ.
 

Flubber

Banned
So, I take it you also read that New Yorker piece last fall? I was shocked when I read about how prominent Democratic party members were deliberately and publicly snubbing LBJ during the Dallas trip, so much so that JFK had to send around one his fixers to tell them to knock it off.

LBJ had made a lot of enemies while "Master of Senate" and now, shorn of any real power as a non-entity VP for a dynamic President, the knives were coming out. I think it's plausible that LBJ is off the ticket in '64 and probably under indictment for any number of things by that time too.
 
So, I take it you also read that New Yorker piece last fall? I was shocked when I read about how prominent Democratic party members were deliberately and publicly snubbing LBJ during the Dallas trip, so much so that JFK had to send around one his fixers to tell them to knock it off.

LBJ had made a lot of enemies while "Master of Senate" and now, shorn of any real power as a non-entity VP for a dynamic President, the knives were coming out. I think it's plausible that LBJ is off the ticket in '64 and probably under indictment for any number of things by that time too.
There was actually a meeting held on November 22, 1963 regarding the Bobby Baker scandal.
If the assassination never occurred, I could see Johnson going down politically in this scandal, for sure. LBJ would be forced to resign or worse, could have ended up in prison.
President Kennedy, two days before the trip to Texas had told his secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, that he was looking at Governor Terry Sanford of North Carolina to be his running mate in 1964. JFK then told Mrs. Lincoln that "it is not going to be Lyndon".
 
This could end up biting Kennedy, and many others in the ass. Imagine a scandal like Monica only with half of Congress. The real deal is the KGB spy JFK slept with. That's some ammunition.
 

Flubber

Banned
I'm more interested in the $$$ side of Baker's testimony.


In what way? FWIU, Baker was simply operating one of the usual "perpetual motion" corruption machines: He made bribes to get votes and contracts, used votes and contracts to get money, and used money to make bribes ad infinitum.

He'd been working for one senator or another since his teens, IIRC, always ready to help with one thing or another in return for future favors. He eventually parlayed that "helpfulness" into the powerful "Secretary to the Majority" position where he could "help" even more people.
 
Henry Marshall 1909-1961

My dim memory has it that a Billy Sol Estes was involved with Baker or LBJ. Anyone remeber if this is correct, and what the scam was?
Billy Sol Estes was involved BIG TIME with LBJ and Bobby Baker.
There were alot of scams ... but the major one was the murder of Henry Marshall in June of 1961. Marshall was shot five times with his own rifle down in Texas AND it was ruled a suicide!
Feel free to read the story by searching "Henry Marshall LBJ". You will be amazed by what you read.

If President Kennedy lived, you probably have LBJ resigning from the vice presidency AND/OR serving time in prison because of the Bobby Baker scandal and various other issues springing up in Texas.
 
Baker told Robert Caro that he could've but didn't, ditto a lot of other VIPs.

Actually, Caro makes clear that Baker is one of the interviewees he's never got [p.617, hardcover edition].

What Caro does argue in the newly released volume of LBJ's biography is that the LIFE magazine investigation into LBJ's non-Baker related (or ostensibly non-Baker related) fortune was the real landmine for Johnson. That was the political smoking gun, as it couldn't be subsumed into byzantine white collar crime investigations, as Baker was.

Yet I did get the impression from that narrative that the Baker scandal, if it had somehow exploded, probably also snares JFK, because of the callgirl ring Bobby ran--Caro doesn't say as much, but I definitely grokked "Oh, by the way, Jack could be easily identified as having used the services of those women, not Johnson, but this isn't a bio of Kennedy so I'm not going to say so explicitly."

Also, AFAIK the thing with the Baker scandal is that the senate rules committee did investigate it, with the ranking GOP senator (John Williams of Delaware) being very, very keen on exposing the truth--yet there was a deep institutional desire to minimalise the fallout of it all. I assume this was because Republicans as well as senate Dems could have been burnt.
 
Ok, read the Marshall link & a few other items the search produced. That jogged a few memories from my early years. I also remember the name "Sol Estes" appearing in print & associated with some odd anti communist stories. Probablly dont have time to pursue any of that, & the name may be coincidence.

Anyway thanks for the link.
 
Top